I want to create what I think would be a valuable tool for others as well. I would like to extend JMeter and create a Generative Controller that reads an Apache log file and sends HTTP requests to a given host with the GET or POST params from the requests in the log file. It would funtion just like the HTTP Request controller that comes with JMeter, except that instead of always calling the same URL it would always just read the next line of the log. Instead of an input field for 'path' it would have an input field for where to get the Apache log file to use. This tool would allow me to re-simulate the exact requests made to a real server over the course of time. I might even want to add another component that causes the requests to be generated with the same relative frequency as the requests in the logs.
My problem is that I am having trouble figuring out how to create this class. I had a hunch that the HTTP Request generative controller was likely a single java object somewhere, but I've perused the source quite a bit and I can't see anything that would fit (I was hoping to maybe just bastardize that object a bit to save coding time). Are the generative controllers that come with JMeter single java objects? If so, which ones are they? Also, are there any good examples of how to something like what I want to do? The developer's manual has some good information but the learning curve looks a bit steep to have to climb just to create this one simple class. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jason Fisher Software Engineer
